Society Today – October meeting

At the October meeting the subject ‘Money is ruining sport but there is a good side too’ was fully explored: the relentless drive to be top team in football, or champion in some other sports creates competition to buy the best players and prompts the sponsors or owners to pour money in to encourage this craving. Managers have a chancy job and can quickly be sacked, season tickets are very expensive and corruption is a real risk in some sports. TV and other sponsorship organisations maybe influential and there are drug problems in international leagues. It is a shocking picture in some ways. However, locally, sport is benefiting: new playing fields for schools, sports facilities improving greatly and raising standards across the board as the Olympics prove. Young people are encouraged to take up a sport, wealthy clubs support less well-off teams in city centres. Betting firms put money into needy sports (e.g rowing, bowling), and women’s teams receive help from men’s teams. Following the example of the National Lottery we should channel money into local clubs and keep on developing new, young talents. On the whole an encouraging picture and an excellent discussion. Our next meeting is on 10th November, when the theme is ‘Homelessness’. Tom Gilmore.